"The last few were, yes. Before that I was just helping out on the floor whenever I had the chance." She could see by the puzzled look on his face that she was going to have to explain that. "Initially, they had me working in the E.R. when I came here. They break everyone in on the E.R. The thinking behind that is that if you don't run screaming into the night after a rotation in the E.R., you have at least some of what it takes to become a dedicated doctor."

And she was dedicated, he noticed. It was evident in everything she did. It also meant that his grandmother was in good hands.

Glancing at his watch, he realized he had to be getting back. "All right, I'll meet you here after six." It occurred to him that he was making a.s.sumptions. "Will you be off by then?"

She nodded. "Barring an act of G.o.d, yes."

"Let's hope G.o.d's busy with something else, then," Cole commented just before he took his leave.

He didn't realize he was smiling until he caught his reflection in a dormant monitor as he pa.s.sed it. Cole pulled his features into a somber expression.

"Why Geriatrics?"

Cole tendered the question over a house salad and sesame-flecked breadsticks as he and his grandmother's incredibly enthusiastic physician waited for their main course.

Mt. Vesuvius was a small restaurant that had been part of the neighborhood for the last three decades. It barely accommodated the fourteen tables that were vying for s.p.a.ce on the sawdust-covered floor. But the aroma, comprised of a host of different herbs and spices, that filled the area was the stuff that dreams and expanding waistlines were made of.

"I like hearing stories," she told him frankly.

Cole tried to make sense of her answer in the present context and couldn't. "Excuse me?"

Nika broke off a piece of the breadstick and popped it into her mouth, then explained. "Old people are filled with experiences, with stories they're dying to share with someone. Most of their families are too busy earning a living or trying to squeeze the last drop of life out of their existences. They don't have the time to listen to them."

"And you have time?" he questioned with only the smallest sliver of sarcasm. She was a doctor, one of the busiest, most demanding professions on the planet-outside of homicide detective. His guess was that time was not a commodity that she had in great supply.

"I can mult.i.task very efficiently," Nika said with a grin. "And most of the time, my ears aren't doing anything except hanging around anyway. So I listen to them, and get just as much as I give-sometimes more. There's a lot of untapped wisdom to be gotten from those old people," she a.s.sured him.

He watched her polish off the rest of the breadstick. "I can see why my grandmother likes you."

Nika was surprised by his comment. And pleased. "She told you that?"

"No, not in so many words," he admitted. "But I know her. I can see it in her eyes, in the way she talks to you. In the way she talks about you. When I visit her, she doesn't spend the entire time telling me everything you did wrong, which she would if she didn't like you."

Nika laughed. "Now you're going to give me performance anxiety."

He watched her for a long moment. So long that her stomach had time to tighten and then flutter restlessly not once, but twice. "I'm sure you perform very well," he told her, his voice low.

After a beat, Nika realized that she had to tell herself to breathe.

She was relieved when she saw the waitress approaching with their orders. "Dinner's here," she told him needlessly.

They spent the next forty-five minutes discussing the list she'd given him and deliberately ignoring the electricity that had shown up and taken a seat at the table between them. The electricity that crackled sharply and unexpectedly not once, but several times during the course of the meal and the dessert that followed.

The electricity, she thought, that would wind up tripping her up. If she was going to fall hard for somebody-and so far she hadn't in all her thirty years-Cole Baker was the wrong man to pick. He was good to his grandmother and handy to have around when elevators died, but she had a feeling that he would neither want nor know what to do with a woman's heart if it was offered to him.

"The odd thing was," Nika continued as the busboy cleared away their plates, "I didn't realize until I reviewed the names on the list that there were several patients who lived in either a nursing home or in an a.s.sisted living facility. They were the patients who either had no family or whose families felt that, by setting them up in these homes, their obligation to show up in their lives from time to time was rescinded.

"Those are the people, who don't understand the meaning of the phrase, 'the ties that bind,'" she continued, unaware that her voice was swelling with pa.s.sion. "They just want to appease their consciences."

He looked down the list, which he had placed next to his plate. "What about the other names? Anything strike you as similar there as well?"

"Yes," she said grimly. Something else had occurred to her after she'd printed the list up. "Every one of them had a disease that was not about to be cured."

He made the natural a.s.sumption. "They were terminal, then?"

"They were terminal," she echoed. "Some of them were in the late stages of cancer, of leukemia, of Parkinson's disease. The sad thing is," she continued, "for the most part, the cancer patients could have been cured if they'd only come in sooner. But for one reason or another, they had hoped that their symptoms would just go away and that they'd be all right again."

She sighed. It was such a waste. "It doesn't work like that. And, in this day and age, it seems a shame that these people don't take advantage of all the advances that medicine has made." She gave him an example. "One of the patients, a Mrs. Ida Jones, was too embarra.s.sed to tell her doctor that she was having pains around her pelvic area." Reaching over to the paper, she tapped the fourth line. "She's the fourth name on the list."

Cole looked down at the printout. She had included the addresses, as well as thumbnail descriptions of the initial complaint that the patients had come in with, and the presumed cause of death that had ultimately seen them out. At first glance, it all appeared perfectly acceptable to him.

But obviously it wasn't. Not if one of Patience Memorial's own attending physicians was suspicious that something more was going on than readily met the eye.

Cole scanned the names again. "You said that some of these patients had no families."

"Right. Most of the ones who were brought in from the local nursing homes had no next of kin to contact," she repeated. "When they died, the hospital notified the head administrator at the homes." She hated how sad that sounded.

Since the records were all here, in the interest of time he decided to attempt a shortcut. "Do you think you can get me the names of the next of kin for the others?"

Mrs. Silverman would probably have her head-and her job-if she found out. But Silverman was not her concern. These former patients were.

"No problem," she a.s.sured him. The man in Records owed her a favor. "I take it you want to talk to them."

He nodded. While they'd been having dinner, one of the waiters had approached each table and lit the thick, chunky candles that were in the center. The candlelight seemed to love her. It took him a second to get his mind back on her question.

"I thought I'd see if there were any unusual life insurance policies involved."

She hadn't thought of that. That made it so callous. "You think this is about money?"

At this point, he didn't know. He was casting out lines to see if he could get a nibble.

"Stranger things have happened," he told her. "There was a case several years ago where two retired schoolteachers were taking out large insurance polices on homeless vagrants in the area. They'd get them to sign the papers in exchange for a hot meal and some clean clothes. After a certain amount of time had pa.s.sed, they would run the poor sap down in their car and kill him in order to collect the money. They took turns," he added, shaking his head.

Nika stared at him, numbed by the blatant horror of what he was telling her. "You're kidding," she whispered incredulously.

"That's not the kind of headline that jokes are made about," he told her.

It made him sick to his stomach to recall the case. The retired schoolteachers had been in their early seventies. Schoolteachers, for G.o.d sakes. They were the very ones involved in helping to mold the nation's children and their moral character.

"My point," he continued, "is that maybe someone is taking out polices on these people, then killing them off so that they can collect."

Put that way, she supposed that it did sound plausible. "The M.E. found a small puncture wound in Mr. Mayer's neck," she said, repeating what they both knew, then extrapolating on it. "If that's the method of killing them off, and it is pretty simple and very effective-no muss, no fuss, not even any drugs to get and possibly leave a trail-then I'm guessing the same person would be paying a "visit" to all the other patients just before they died."

"Sounds right." He leaned forward, watching her. Watching the way light played off the soft contours of her face. "What are you driving at?"

"We have a number of surveillance cameras on the floor." She hoped she wasn't insulting him by pointing that out. "Maybe we'll get lucky and the same face will keep popping up on the tapes-provided that hospital security hangs on to the tapes for more than a month at a time," Nika qualified.

He looked at her, finding that he had to suppress a smile. Not exactly something he needed to do on a regular basis. He'd been thinking the same thing, but rather than mention that to her, he decided to allow the doctor to bask in the feeling that she was making headway in the case for him.

"I'm impressed," he told her. "You think like a cop. Anyone in your family on the force?"

Directly, no, but she was now part of an extended family, so technically, the answer was yes. "Three of my cousins are married to law enforcement officers. My uncle used to be a police sergeant on the NYPD and now runs a security firm with another one of his sons-in-law. As a matter of fact, the hospital contracts his firm for extra help around the holidays, and whenever anyone of major importance comes to the hospital to have a procedure performed."

A thought struck her. "Uncle Josef would probably be able to get those tapes for you a lot faster than if you went through regular channels."

His "channels" usually involved tersely voiced orders issued to underlings, but for now, Cole kept that to himself. She was enjoying herself too much "helping." Right now, it cost him nothing to allow her to go on thinking she was an a.s.set.

"That would be very helpful," he agreed. "You're a very handy person to have around, Dr. Pulaski."

That was way too formal for a man who was making her skin tingle on a regular basis. "You yanked me out of the jaws of a paralyzed elevator-I think you should call me by my first name." She'd already told him once, but she had a feeling he'd probably forgotten it. "It's Nika."

"Nika?" he repeated, a little amused and bewildered by the name at the same time. "Is that your whole name?"

She shook her head. "It's short for Veronika," she told him. "But n.o.body calls me that." They all found it much too formal and she was not that way, Nika added silently.

"Veronika." He rolled the name over on his tongue, as if appraising it for taste and texture. "Then I'll be the first," he told her.

He probably would be, she thought, but she wasn't thinking about her name. Instead, she was focused on the wave of antic.i.p.ation that had suddenly risen up, riding the tide of adrenaline within her that absolutely refused to subside no matter how hard she tried to bank it down or smother it.

She'd never been this attracted to a man before. She had a feeling she was going to pay for that.

Chapter 9.

When the waiter brought the check over and placed it on the table in front of Cole, Nika opened her purse and began rummaging through it.

Watching her for a moment, Cole asked, "What are you doing?"

"Looking for my wallet so I can pay my share of the bill," she answered, sparing him a look just before she located her elusive wallet, which had sunk to the bottom of her purse, and took it out.

"You don't have a share," he replied. When she seemed confused, he said, "I used the D-word, remember?"

Nika's confusion lingered for another couple of seconds before dissipating, and when it did, she was still a little surprised because she hadn't really thought he'd meant it at the time.

"You said date," she recalled.

He took out his own wallet. "It's coming back to you," he observed, nodding his head in approval. She had no idea if he was serious or pulling her leg. "Good. I was beginning to think that I imagined the whole conversation."

She wasn't comfortable with this. Did he think she was too poor to pay her own way? She was almost certain that this wasn't really a date. "I'd still like to pay my half."

Cole remained firm and shook his head. "Not going to break me," he commented. "Besides, I don't have staggering student loans to pay back."

Was that why he was paying for dinner? Pity? He needed to be set straight. "Neither do I."

A glimmer of surprise was evident in his eyes. "I thought all medical students came out of school with huge debts."

Usually, they did. But she and her sisters were very lucky that way. "My mother had an older sister, Zofia, who was an actuary at one of the major insurance companies. She worked all of her life, and then died without enjoying any of her money. She left it to my mother, who used it to put all of us through school." Wielding it like a weapon, she added silently, remembering her mother's non-negotiable terms. They could only get their educations paid for if they agreed to become doctors. Luckily, that turned out to be exactly what they wanted, except for perhaps the baby, Henryka, who took a while to come around.

Cole wasn't about to accept defeat. He had another card to play. "All right, then let me fall back on my male ego. You pay, it'll be bruised." He leaned in closer to her across the table. "If I called this a business dinner, would that make you feel less like you were compromising whatever ideals are keeping you from allowing me to pay for this?"

"It's not that, it's-business?" Nika abruptly asked, the homicide detective's choice of words suddenly sinking in.

Cole nodded. "You can think of yourself as my informant."

She had a feeling that she might have just met her match, as far as stubbornness went. Cole sounded as if he would go on arguing with her until she finally gave in. Better sooner than later. Besides, this was only a minor point. She just didn't want him to feel he had to pay for her.

"All right," she allowed with a smile of indulgence. "To save your ego."

"Good," he accepted her explanation. Rather than using a credit card, Cole placed several bills on the tab, more than covering the cost of their dinners as well as adding a healthy-size tip. "Ready?" he asked.

Picking up her purse, Nika slipped her wallet back into it and then echoed, "ready," just as she began to rise to her feet.

She was caught off guard when Cole circled the table and came up behind her, drawing the chair away so that she didn't have to push it back. Nika looked at him over her shoulder, an uncertain expression on her face.

He laughed when he caught a glimpse of it. "Don't worry, I'm not about to trip you or do something strange." He moved the chair back in as she stepped to one side. "Haven't you ever had anyone treat you like a lady?"

The answer required no thought on her part. "Not recently."

"Then you've been seeing the wrong kind of men," he concluded.

"The only kind of men I've been seeing since I arrived in New York have either been bleeding, throwing up or are contagious."

The woman was talking about work. Placing his hand to the small of her back, Cole guided her around the tables, now all filled, and toward the front door. As he walked past the receptionist's tall, narrow desk, he nodded goodbye.

Nika caught the silent exchange and wondered how well he knew the woman-was he a regular customer, or was there something more to it-and why did that even matter? she asked herself in the next thought.

"Are you telling me you haven't gone out socially since you got here?" he asked her.

She saw no reason to be cagey. After all, it wasn't as if this was an actual date. He'd just been kidding when he'd said that.

"I'm telling you I haven't gone out, period. Except to Uncle Josef's a couple of times." And even that had an obligation attached to it. "Turning up at my uncle and aunt's table in Queens every so often is mandatory." There was a note of fondness in her voice as she referred to the couple. "If I miss that, one or both of them come looking for me."

He held the door open for her. "You don't sound like you mind."

She didn't. None of them did even though a couple of her cousins pretended to grumble about it on occasion just for form's sake. "It's nice having family," she told him. "A bigger family," she amended. Nika walked right past his car, which was parked in a prime spot at the curb.

"Hey, where are you going?" he asked, calling her attention to the vehicle.

She stopped walking, but didn't retrace her steps. She saw no reason for that. "To the bus stop. My sister Alyx has the car, because she's got the third shift at the hospital," she explained, citing why she wasn't going back to the hospital to pick up the communal car they all shared.

"Where do you live?" he wanted to know. "I'll take you home."